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Half in the Bag - Alien: Romulus

Half in the Bag - Alien: Romulus

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I just saw it, and there was something in the water! And the production was spectacular! I just feel sorry for kids today being brainwashed by the broken morality that movies like this promote. Alien 3 is wholesome in comparison, when I think about it. Normalizing an emotional attachment to an AI, because "some are good people"... a freaking robot as surrogate family, in a world absent of human role models that look like grown ups...Also, the robot/android/whatever is a product of the main antagonist, which is not a person is an evil corporation (although corporations are people). So much artistry at the service of such an evil thing. There is a difference between contemplating evil and embracing it.

Juan Calvo

Man I remember those, I read them several times in my twenties, might be time for a re-read actually. They're so good and infinitely better than Alien 3- for me they're the "real" canon.

Mudflap

I told people that it’s worth it just to see the synthetic guy’s acting. Not AI one, OBVIOUSLY.

Allison PM

Probably terrible...

Manuel Johnen

The rationale for Andy calling the alien a bitch like that was because the water guy called him that earlier in the film.

Alan

Thinking about it, they skip seeing 'Godzilla Minus One' and 'Dune Part Two' in the theatre but go to see 'Borderlands' and 'Alien: Romulus' - no wonder they seem so miserable.

DonMac

the unnecessary member berry lines like "get away from her..." and "...you have my sympathies" were groan worthy and misplaced but didn't ruin the experience for me. The attempt to sew together a quilt from all the other Alien movies was admirable with the final product being serviceable. Reminded me a bit of "Rise of Skywalker" but done 6.73 times better.

kronack

I feel like that would either have been really cool or terrible

John G

"Andy" (short for Android, plural is "Andies") is what an artificial being is called in Philip K. Dick's novel 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' (The term "Replicant" replaced it in the movie adaptation 'Blade Runner'). Makes me wonder if that name for the android in 'Alien: Romulus' was an intentional reference or just coincidence.

DonMac

Without the last 10 minutes with the desaturated Nav'i it wouldn't have been that bad. Production design was top notch. On-screen Ash looked pretty good, but pretty awful in-scene. First thing that took me out of it was seeing °F on the cryo pods. Scientists. In the future. Using the Farenheit scale? Nah. But then they use °Kelvin on the fuel pods. Just use °C for everything! And it latterly occurred to me I couldn't think of a reason why The Company sent a probe to retrieve a dead xenomorph from the orbit of LV426 and then 3D printed clones, when they already knew about the existence of the species on the planet, and likely colonist traffic was already headed there if not there already.

Lee Noble

I thought this one was pretty solid apart from that dumb callback and the Ian Holm deepfake thing.

Tyree

Alien 3 is a solid movie except for the double ending. I haven't watched any of the Alien movies that came after, but the b-roll in this HitB made me curious. Also, I wanted to be clever and make up a joke title for the next Alien movie. Alien: Penetration. Then I looked up the words. Makes somewhat sense though.

Marvin Falz

The fan service was cringeworthy, but ultimately I liked the characters enough to enjoy the second half.

Jesse DeStasio

Everytime one of these dumpster fires is pushed into theatres I remember the Aliens direct sequel that was in the works (until the galaxy brains over at Fox killed it) with Neil Blomkamp directing, Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn returning as Ripley and Hicks, and a grown up Newt.

Joshua Cubbin

My God. The current earnings model doesn’t include diction lessons! They could be using even less imagination! They could have had a character start a self-destruct and then change her mind too late.

Joe Triscari

Jay looks like he's ready to do The Mastodon Quake with that giant alien dick on his face.

The Real Zam

Yep. Heck we also even have a decent drama set on a corporate dystopian space mining colony and it's called "Outland" featuring Sean Connery.

Jeremy _

I feel like these--plus the Furiosa and Ghostbusters Frozen Empire ones which I think they sort of gave B-minuses to--are part of an 'arc' they are deliberately building up to show just how lame, played, and decadent all this retread shit is.

Jeremy _

["I will do the fingering" memes]

Jeremy _

They failed to fully commit, though: The cockney needs to say, "There sumthin' in the wattah guvna!"

Jeremy _

Forsooth. Although as Ive noted before "Palpatine cloned himself, body-hopped and now has a vast, secret new fleet on a shadowy planet" is pretty much verbatim the plot of Star Wars Dark Empire, a comic series published in 1992. This might normally indicate *somebody* read it but honestly 1990s Dark Horse comics--Star Wars, Aliens or otherwise--are better than any recent movies so, as you say, they clearly didn't read them all that carefully.

Jeremy _

Haha the good reviews almost tricked me into going and see this movie. I guess that's how desperate I am for a good Alien movie. But after watching this I think I'll pass. It seems the franchise is beyond saving at this point anyway. At least Alien and Aliens are timeless classics, and I'm with Jay that Alien 3 was pretty good too despite the wasted potential and the turmoil surrounding it.

GirouxFan

Andy made this movie. That performance was incredible and I hope the best for that actor. He’s crazy talented.

heich (hey + ch)

It was really distracting seeing Ash/ Rook. Totally took me out of the film whenever he appeared.

Michael Cooper

Yes. Blade Runner 2049 was an exceptional sequel and film in its own right.

Michael Cooper

This review is pretty spot on. I was enjoying it as its own thing until deep fake Ash appeared and was thinking why did it need to be the same model from the original Alien. Also, kudos to Mike for mocking the “there’s something in the f’ing water” quote heard in the trailer. I would say that to my gf with a terrible cockney accent just to low level annoy her out of love.

David S

Using that material requires reading the comics, not just scrolling through its pages for the pretty pictures. They would also have to pay the creators involved, and that is not allowed.

Juan Calvo

In foreign markets the spike in rewatches is actually about 1.82% because some of us still can't pronounce "bitch" properly, so it is conducive to more engagement with the content by reinforcing the phrase in an attempt to pronounce it correctly.

Juan Calvo

Appreciate it but I can wait and pay for it.

Ken Harris

A complete digital file of this is probably available right now through a basic Google search. I mean that's how I watched Last Jedi, Annihilation, Weathering With You, Suzume, and Godzilla. Minus One.

Jeremy _

Except we probably already have two films showing human life under Weyland Yutani and they are called Blade Runner.

Jeremy _

I'm wondering if Mike isn't being cynical enough about how the committee is including references. They may have a formula that implies this movie will do 3.56% better with the callbacks. But I think it's even more cynically uncreative. They do the callbacks to create replay urges in the other properties which they now own. So "get away from her" creates a spike of 1.25% in Aliens rewatches but adding "you bitch, " creates a spike of 1.54% In rewatches with as much as 1.7% in foreign markets. This against the loss of viewership due to the blatant lack of creativity and story telling competence means Disney nets an additional $25,124.43 by including the "you bitch" addition. Desecrating the memory of Ian Holm loses viewership for this movie but increases viewership for the original Alien. Therefore, Disney earns $45,102.94 by digging up that corpse digitally.

Joe Triscari

I’ll just rewatch Aliens.

andrew

Yeah, I really enjoyed the first half of the film, especially the planet scenes. Really sold the desperation of the populace and the horror of Weyland Yutani Corp. David Jonsson as Andy was a great performance. Unfortunately the other characters weren't very developed at all. That final act was a tough watch. It really did start out so promising. Fantastic production design and camera work .

Michael Cooper

I can understand preferring to watch Prometheus over this, but Covenant.... did that hack fraud Jay forget how bad that movie was, the only redeeming quality was David, and he wasn't the main character

Javier Barragan

10?

DonMac

What did we do to deserve getting spoiled with so many new videos in such short succession of each other?

Michael Parker

Dammit I'm not seeing this until Monday! I'ma watch the video anyway.

Amanda B.

Laughed so hard when Mike kicked the TV from the table.

Marco Cabibbo

I though it was either the second, fifth, seventh or ninth movie, depending on how you count... ? :/

Manuel Johnen

And just like that I could give two shits about this movie.

Jeff Roper

Wait, they're really incorporating Scott's "Prometheus" and "Covenant" horseshit into this...? WTF?!? :/

Manuel Johnen

Has anyone been to a 270° 'ScreenX' presentation? This seems like a good movie to try that out on.

Damon Killian

You guys posted a video the day before and the day after my birthday. This means nothing it’s just funny.

Shan O’Blivion

You guys! Deadpool 3! Borderlands! Alien 10! All in the space of a few weeks! MOVIES ARE BACK BABY!!

Mike St Louis

Can't wait not to watch this in a theater...! <3

Manuel Johnen

Damn it. I have to wait months to see this since I'm not going to the theater.

Ken Harris

Another timely HITB! What's putting this pep in their step?

DonMac

Just like with Star Wars, the best, most innovative storytelling in the Aliens universe was done by Dark Horse Comics in the 1980s and early 1990s. Stuff published before Aliens 3 came out and Newt and Hicks were canonically dead and they have long arcs exploring how they matured and developed after surviving Hadley's Hope. Stuff exploring "Just how intelligent are the xenos?" or "How does the Queen control the warriors?" or "What happens if Weyland actually does what it keeps trying to do and captures some xenos and tries to communicate or control them?" EDIT (and spoilers): Oh yeah and apparently being in the presence of an alien Queen has long-term psychic effects on human beings. If I recall the comics correctly, Hicks just gradually goes insane whereas Newt, because she was a child, gradually gains the mental ability to detect the presence of xenos on a planet and to predict their actions.

Jeremy _

What the heck kinda schedule is this??!

Skippy

Damn y'all are FEEDING us

Rhea

Golden age of RLM

Zun

My dads are back

Conner Mills


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